Life is not linear, here's why...
Edition #066
Hey friends,
Greetings from Manchester - I hope you're having a fantastic Sunday!
One Lesson
Life is not linear
Stories give life meaning, they persuade, entertain and sell. Stories give us clarity. Humans thrive on stories.
Adlerian psychology argues that life has no meaning, it's only the stories we craft that give our lives meaning.
On the surface this seems depressing, what's the point if life has no meaning?
But really it's freeing. The fact that life is meaningless gives you the ability to craft your own meaning.
It's natural to want to view life as this never ending straight line of events, 'this happened, then this and that's because' .
But life isn't a linear sequence of events that perfectly fit together, instead life looks something like a series of dots.
We then connect these dots looking backwards, crafting a narrative around our life story and forgetting the dots that don't fit that narrative.
These stories can be useful, they allow us to make sense of the past. But they can also be harmful.
We can start to view our life story as a limiting factor on what our future will look like.
Because one bad thing happened doesn't mean that more bad things need to happen.
Don't let your past life story define your future. Past events don't control the present or the future.
Two Ideas
I.
Creators should focus on quantity over quality in the beginning because of the mere-exposure effect:
People tend to develop a preference for things just because they are familiar with them
II.
If losing something feels about 2x worse than gaining something feels good - why are we all so focused on being more productive (gaining something) than we are on protecting our time (not losing something).
Three Favourite Finds
Confidence required: The more you learn, the more you realise how much you still don't know. Levelling up is obviously a good thing but it means nothing until you make something happen.
This article from Derek Sivers shares a great message that making progress as an entrepreneur is all about having the confidence to take action.
Mr Beast on Success: This podcast with Mr Beast on Joe Rogan provides a fascinating insight into the mind of one of the best creators on YouTube.
In this clip Jimmy talks about how him and a group of friends had a single minded obsession with improving on YouTube. Everyday they would get together and study the components of viral videos, from titles to thumbnails, video pacing and color grading.
Design Resources: I've been designing a lot recently and something I noticed is how I become a way better designer when I just surround myself with great design. Here are a few of my favourite resources:
End note
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Have a great week!
- Stephen